I wanted to post something because I have gotten a couple of messages asking about lack of updates and writing, and I thought i'd address those concerns here.

My life has been very hectic lately: this new semester of college is pushing me to my limits with work and other things that I would rather not discuss. From that, I find it safe to say that I am personally finding it hard to keep up with a fandom that moves and changes so quickly when I feel like i'm stuck in world of constant anxiety filled with deadlines and dark undereye circles.

I will not be leaving the fandom, but I will be taking a more passive approach to the Girls' endeavors in the industry, which means I won't be writing frequently (and perhaps not at all), and I don't want to give the illusion of hope to anyone who might be thinking otherwise. My priorities have shifted and I need to take care of myself as well as my work before I can return back to writing for this fandom.

A/N: hey everyone! Not quite sure if i'm happy with the way this turned out; I had writer's block about halfway in but I think I fought through it. we'll see I guess. Happy holidays and Merry Christmas! I hope it was wonderful for you all. Sorry the fonts kinda weird, I copy and pasted straight from my textedit thingy.___________________________________________________________________________________________

I first met you at a bar, on the southern side of the city. I got out of work late, upset: something about a year long project getting cancelled (I don't remember). You sat down on the bar stool next to me, eyes shining, lips curling.

"You look a little lonely, can I buy you a drink?"

I looked at you quizzically until it dawned on you that you hadn't yet told me your name,

"I'm Tiffany, by the way."

---

Your lips were stronger than the vodka.

Astringent and bitter, but still I wanted more (I didn't even like to drink). We went back to your booth where you told me you liked my hair - that it was reminded you of chocolate dipped in honey lacquer. And I recall asking if you thought I was pretty.

---

You called me a week after we met (but I don't remember giving you my number). You said you wanted to take me out on a proper date, and I didn't have the heart to argue against it. The small talk while we were eating was uncomfortable, but you somehow managed to pull me through it.

"What do you like, Taeyeon?"

I thought for a second but the words never came, so I just shrugged.

"So you like shrugging, huh?"

I laughed a little bit. It felt nice.

---

We didn't start fighting until we became a couple.

I was never really a talkative person. I guess you didn't like that very much; I just never thought it was worth the breath it takes to argue. Yet there we were - with tensions running high and tempers going from hot to cool, cool to hot in a carnal convection.

Silence snapped, insults started to fly.

---

It always began with questions (always ended in tears).

I couldn't just let anyone in. I just couldn't. But you wouldn't take no for an answer,

"Just talk to me, Taeyeon! What are you so afraid of?"

And then when I wouldn't yield, the lies came out,

"Don't worry about it, it's fine."

---

Every time we argued, i'd respond curtly (I just wanted it to be over). But for some reason, it always pushed you to get another response; a cruel reaction. You always said the things you knew would hit the hardest.

They say you can measure the happiness of a relationship by the number of scars that each person carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words.

I guess we just didn't measure up.

---

You woke up to my alarm clock blaring; so early the sun was still sleeping just below the horizon and you were irritated. Some time later you walked into the kitchen as I was about to leave for work and you saw unwashed dishes and it set you off; I wasn't in the mood for a fight, but fights weren't always conveniently scheduled.

You left angry.

---

When I got the call that no one wants to hear, my coffee mug slipped through my fingers and I watched it break; little glints of light decorating the tiled floor. I ran three stop signs on the way to the hospital and when I entered your room, I saw you lying there: tubes weaving in and out like the stitches to a sweater. The precarious beeping of your monitor; I was scared

They told me you were in a head on collision with a semi truck. They told me a lot of other things that didn't make sense: herniated disc, punctured lung, coma. I shook my head in disbelief at them all.

I thought I was dreaming, and I just wanted to wake up.

---

You died at 3:13am, two days later. I sat at your bedside and watched the rise and fall of your chest, listening as your monitor went from beeping to flatlining. There was no use keeping the machines running. The doctors tried their hardest, but the clock was against them; time never stands still, not even for those we love.

To this day I still wonder why we let such petty things get in the way of our happiness together. I guess I simply thought we had forever. That's always it though, isn't it? People take for granted the time given to them. Affirmations of affection seldom heard; like a gem you keep tucked away in an old jewelry box - taken out every so often, only when the thought of it crosses your mind.

---

It hurts to let go.

I see your face in everyone I talk to. In the mornings I find myself still apologizing for when my alarm clock goes off. I try not to think about you all the time (especially that infectious smile), and i'm fairly successful in doing so. But sometimes I touch your pillow or your jacket - things you used to touch - looking for echoes of your fingers.

I think I just need a virtual diary where I can write without necessarily wondering who will be reading the words I decide to type. I want a notepad for all my thoughts, my work (not just writing but the fields in which I live day in and day out), and my vents. Tumblr is crowded with people I barely know, save for a couple of very close friends. Facebook feels like a facade put up to please family and friends. LJ is a place to let my fictitious ideas come to fruition for those that want to read it (and me, because I like reading what I write, too).

But none of those places are great for the inbetween.

I guess I just don't like the feeling of having eyes follow me all the time; I think it's time for a change. Most people only see certain facets of my identity. Never able to piece together the whole thing, never able to connect me to another me if that makes any sense. And that's fine, I want it that way. But I also want just one place to showcase every side of myself without the puzzle being put together.

Uncomfortable and thick like a rainy day in July, you couldn’t wait to wipe it off with the corner of your sleeve; couldn’t wait to replace it with her favorite shade of lipstick – a savory scarlet with more reddish hues than your face when she told you how beautiful you looked that day. You giggled like a schoolgirl with a Valentine crush;

“Thank you, Jessica”

Always when you leave, his “I love you” remains dangling on the lobes of your ears, eager to climb in and nestle in your mind; a most unwelcome visitor. You thought that maybe if you tried harder the words wouldn’t sound so scathing (because any three words as powerful as those would be scathing if they punctured your lungs to have you choke on guilt). That maybe, given six more months, eight, you could learn to love him. But you were never that fast of a learner when it came to lessons of the heart.

You came home with new habits.

The way she clicks her teeth, the hand over her mouth when she laughs heartily, how she folds her tongue over your name when you’re together (“Tiffany…”). The gentle lilac scent of her hair, dancing eyelashes along your cheek when you make love; femininity divine.

So you packed all that you own away in a couple of nondescript cardboard boxes and went to find a new home. With her.

______________________________________________________________________A/N: Just a little something I wrote to ease the stress. Hope everyone is well and good and that the week is treating you kindly.

I decide to ask Jessica one day while she’s driving us to Nowhere in particular (but any place with Jessica is Someplace).

“How do you know when you’re in love?”

Hands gliding down the sides of the steering wheel, she simply responds,

“You just know.”

Now I don’t know much about love, but I know that when I turn on the radio I hear a song about her. And when I’m near her, my chest bumps like a dryer with shoes in it.

Maybe that’s enough.

---

I’m not sure I know exactly what love is.

As I sit down at the worn kitchen table (I was with you when you picked it out at that garage sale several years back) I turn to the one person my heart points to and ask,

“What is love?”

I always thought love was a mystical force of nature – a guide to get you through matters which you didn’t always know how to handle, help through uneasy times, hold your hand during a scary movie, a gentle smile on Sunday morning.

“Love is just that, Yuri.”

“I don’t understand,”

“Love is great, amazing. Love is profound. It’s all the cliché things people say it is but it won’t suddenly make your day turn right-side up. You’ll still be the same person you always were, for better or worse.”

Grabbing a wooden spoon, she stirs the lentil soup that sits in the pot, cooking atop the stove; it was a conglomeration of all of the week’s leftovers stuffed into one kettle because she’s too lazy to go out and get groceries and hates wasting food. Senses filling up with warmth and spice, she gazes up at me, then towards the sink,

“Love won’t even wash your dishes.”

---

I’m not sure I know what it means to love.

We’re watching a horror movie tonight because it’s almost Halloween (they sure don’t make them like they used to). Setting my cup of ramen down, I take a moment to slink back into the cushions of the corduroy couch.

“Jessica, what does love do?”

She stretches her legs out onto the cracked coffee table, attempting to get comfortable,

“Love is being there, spending time with someone. It – oh geez, I hate this part!”

She squeals and grasps my hand as a figure reveals itself to an unsuspecting protagonist. I look down at our hands – feel the way she smoothes the tips of her fingers over my calloused knuckles.

A/N: Hey everyone! This is just something a random idea I had trying to kickstart some creativity, so sorry if it's grammatically flawed or something lol. The title is a play on the english "parts of speech"; i'm sure you can see why XD Hope everyone's week has started off well - we made it through Monday; we did it! =))

Jessica sits down in the cold steel chair of the assessment room; walls barren and devoid of any life. The single window is barred, forcing what little sunlight there is to push through in stripes; little rays of light that Jessica welcomes - the only thing not depressing about the environment. The table she’s sitting at is uneven, so Jessica decides to put a stack of papers underneath the leg to balance it out. She waits and stares at the door towards the front of the sterile room – waiting for the guards to usher her next patient in.

A few minutes pass and the heavy door swings open, guard in the front. He nods towards Jessica and she nods back, relief washing over her as she’s finally able to begin. Behind the guard an orange-clad woman shuffles in: chains bound her thin wrists and ankles, and despite her long stay in prison she hasn’t lost the glow to her skin. Hair free and flowing, Jessica thinks she might as well have stepped out of a shampoo commercial.

“Dr. Jung,” The guard breaks the silence,

“This is your next patient for today, Choi Sooyoung. She has exactly one hour.”

Roughly pushing the prisoner forward, he laughs haughtily as she stumbles towards the chair. Jessica shoots him a glare and he leaves.

“No, I don’t. I haven’t gotten into any fights and I haven’t attempted suicide. So no, I’m not sure why they’re making me see the prison psychologist.”

Jessica grabs a sheet with a timeline, “It says here that you’re due for an annual screen – “

“What do they pay you anyway?” Sooyoung interrupts, chains clanging against one another as she folds her arms across her chest,

“Pardon?”

“The Commandant must be paying you something shitty to get stuck working in a place like this. Who’d want to deal with all these crazy tweakers is beyond me.”

Dr. Jung tilts her head and narrows her eyes,

“I believe you would, Sooyoung. Isn’t that what you do?”

The inmate cackles towards the ceiling,

“Sometimes, yeah. But I prefer the coke heads. At least they dress nice.”

Clearing her throat, Dr. Jung repositions herself in her chair,

“Anyway, let’s get started shall we? I’m going to hold up a series of images and I want you to tell me what you see. Afterwards, I’m going to have you write down why you thought they looked like what you saw. Do you understand?”

Sooyoung rolls her eyes,

“Yeah, doc. Sure. Let’s just get this over with.”

---

“So, there I was in the supermarket buyin’ cat food for my little buddy Rey, then I turn my head to the left and bam! I bump into Krem! You remember him, right? Soo’s old head goon?” Sunny speaks animatedly with Hyoyeon after the dancer’s set.

“Yeah, I think you mentioned him a couple of times.”

“Oh, I put him away a dozen times years ago when I was working with Tae, but he reformed and turned to Jesus since then. Got married, found a legal job. Raising a little girl now. Pretty standup guy. We exchanged numbers.”

Hyoyeon smiles and sips her martini, swirling the olive inside the glass.

“Geez, I wonder what made him turn over a new leaf?”

Sunny shrugs and takes another swig of scotch, “No idea, but I kinda miss those days, you know?”

She sighs, shifting on the barstool slightly and looks over at the dancer’s face. Hyoyeon looks back, giving her a look of pity. She puts a warm hand on Sunny’s thigh.

“I know you loved it, but I’m glad you’re not doing it anymore. Wouldn’t want you ending up some sulking emotional mess like Tae.”

The shorter woman shakes her head,

“It’s not exactly her fault…there was a particular incident one night and…”

She pauses, brow furrowing,

“It just…it really unhinged her.”

Hyoyeon runs a hand through her platinum tresses and sighs. Sunny puts her down her drink and resumes,

“Look, Hyo, I wish I could say I came just to chat and to see some rockin’ legs on stage, but unfortunately I’m here for another reason.”

“What’s up?”

“Uh…Tae stopped by last night…”

The look of surprise on the dancer’s face is not lost on Sunny. The shorter woman continues,

“Yeah, she came ‘round like one in the morning or something. Hard to remember, I was pretty drunk. She came asking for help. It’d been some time since I’d last seen her, I was kinda taken by surprise. Anyway, she wanted me to see if you had any new info.”

Hyoyeon scoffs and shakes her head,

“That’s just like her, get someone to do her grunt work…She’s been getting me to do it for months. I don’t know how you put up with it for so long.”

“You know how she is,” Sunny takes another swig and squeezes her eyes shut; the burn both painful and relaxing, “she worms her way into your head and heart and stays there. Feeding. Like a tapeworm or something.”

Hyo giggles, “A Taepworm?” she emphasizes for added humor

“That’s an excellent way of putting it.”

The dancer purses her lips and drums detailed nails on the mahogany bar stand,

“I…have heard a few things recently.”

“Go on.”

“Well, seems the late Mr.Hwang has a daughter who’s flying to New Seoul in a few days to attend the funeral.”

“Shit.”

Hyoyeon continues,

“Don’t think she’s in any immediate danger or anything, but it’d be best to keep tabs on her.”

“Wait wait, hold up,” Sunny looks over at Hyoyeon quizzically, “From what Tae said, this seems like a political killing. With Kwon ruled out, maybe someone from Europia? Either way, there’s no reason to go after the daughter…”

Crossing legs tinted with glitter, the dancer shrugs,

“That’s what I thought too but a couple of nights ago this guy came into the club. Rich, bald, fat. You know, the usual gross office monkey. But this one knew things…he said that neither Europia nor the US would dare touch us right now. Some weird stuff going on within the Commandant’s cabinet. I don’t know what though, he was too gone to tell me.”

“The Commandant? What the hell could she do? She doesn’t exactly run this place.”

“Like I said, I don’t know. But more than likely, Hwang probably did.” Looking around anxiously, she leans closer to Sunny and lowers her voice to a whisper,

“You know she has eyes and ears everywhere. It’s not that farfetched to think.”

“But the Commandant basically waits on those corporate asshats hand in foot and legs over head. She wouldn’t dare.”

Hyoyeon nervously glances around again,

“I mean, she could have someone within her cabinet pulling strings to make shit happen. Regardless, there’s something fishy going on. Look after that Hwang girl.”

Sunny nods emphatically. Rising up from her seat, she wraps the dancer in a hug and bids her farewell.

Stepping out into the acrid air, she begins the trek back to her apartment – and back to Spielrein. Truth be told, Sunny really did miss her; years without a word, she was beginning to worry about the vigilante. Spielrein had made Hyoyeon promise to stay silent about her whereabouts and actions – even to an old pal like Sunny. Maybe that’s what hurt the most: the fact that Spielrein found someone else to help her out – a new companion – someone else to help carry the burden. The two of them used to be a team.

The wind picks up and Sunny is thrown back into a bout of nostalgia. Looking upwards, she smiles to herself remembering when they decided to begin this whole crime-fighting business in the first place.

Choi Sooyoung’s evaluation went without problem. No signs of mental illness, no signs of psychotic behavior – routine. Rude, but cooperative as well as unusually flirty. Seems she isolates herself from other inmates, that might be to her best interest; her records indicate that she was thrown in prison for drug trafficking – quite the sentence. It’s reassuring to know that she hasn’t been administering narcotics within the confines of federal prison here. The guards also say she shows no signs of aggressiveness with them.

With the court ordered assessment successful and without incident, it’s my humble opinion that she is well enough to stand appeal.

A/N: Hey everyone, sorry this update is so late. I had a bit of trouble organizing how i'd like the story to progress in my head, but I think i've figured it out now. Hope everyone's having a nice weekend! =)) PS: formatting on LJ makes me want to tear my hair out.

Last week, I went to a talk given by my favorite professor; an old and frail man yet who somehow still retains a childlike innocence. He reminded us at the end of the talk that if there's one thing he's learned throughout his life, it's that we should do what we want to do now before it's too late. Just looking at his earnest grin, his enthusiastic manner, I realized he was a living breathing testament to that.

Lately I've been feeling dizzy. Maybe it's the strange amount of rain and humidity that's been making me feel perpetually lightheaded; I don't know. Everywhere I walk it feels like my head is detached from my body, and my eyes from my head, and my vision from my eyes and I go through the motions of everyday life but it's not me. Hearing my professor's words overwhelmed me with a sudden rush of anxiety equivalent to that of a night before an exam; except this time, it didn't end when I left the testing hall.

Whether the dizziness means anything (in the Weberian sense of the word) is irrelevant. Vertigo gives your sensory experience an element of absurdist surreality that not even having your laundry thrown out and shat on can achieve. And that brings to light the fact that I live constantly attempting to infuse my meaningless life with meaning one way or another.

When I’m on my way to class and I start feeling lightheaded, I sometimes catch myself wondering if my life is a dream and if anything in my head is real: the crisp air up in the mountains at McDonald Observatory, the childhood spent in the rural countryside tinkering with Legos building them high towards the ceiling, the splashes of lilac, ruby and goldenrod in the garden just beside my home, the suffering of others that constantly surrounds me, the sound of bells coming from the church just down the street...the memories and perceived matters whose reality I question and simultaneously cling to.

My biggest fear is that I’ll wake up someday and realize that it’s all been a dream.

You charted me like a new world – an invariable mix of concentric circles and smooth planes so tantalizingly tangential; I couldn’t bear to not be next to you all the time.

But looking back, I think that was part of the problem.

I thought we matched each other perfectly: soft tilted fingers resulting in rising ellipses – we had perfect symmetry.

There was a word you always used that I was too stupid to understand.

“They’re isomorphic, unnie” you’d always say when I asked why you were drawing those two cardioids next to one another that one evening (were those our hearts?).

“Equal form and equal shape.”

And I know what you meant when you said it but it didn’t stop a smile from creeping up onto my skin – contoured lines mapping the surface of what you’d call my most charming feature.

“I don’t understand why people think you’re so icy.”

---

You told me you felt blessed the morning after your body was first mapped to mine.

“Well I am a goddess, Juhyun. Or have you forgotten?”

You laughed that melodious laugh and I could almost see the harmonic vibrations flitter from your mouth and into the morn-strewn sunlight. Your hair was a mess and your collarbone was littered with swollen circles colored in various shades of red – it was the best I could do; I’m not the mathematician. You propped yourself up on one elbow and draped a fragile arm over my waist,

“Love is the summation of all that I manage to feel towards you. I consider that to be the greatest of all blessings.”

My eyes weld up with tears but in the back of my mind I knew the problem was becoming more and more complex (I should have studied more).

One time, I shouted at you so loud that the neighbors kicked in our door and broke through our windows in concern.

“You can’t just plug people into a formula, Juhyun! We’re not that that simple!”

And you told me I was right.

You told me we can’t have a healthy balanced relationship when one variable is dependent on the other – it works for some things, but not for others. And as the tears kept falling I kept shaking my head (I feared the solution).

“I need a break, Jessica.”

---

It’s been a few months since then and I feel like I’m at the same point I was stuck at when you left – no change at all – but I’m still holding on to what I remember (that answer can’t be right).

Sometimes I get angry because I think you imposed limits on what you allowed yourself to feel. And when the right and left didn’t match up, you called it quits.

But I’m still holding on and hoping that you realize it too (someday) –

A/N: I meant to write a few drabbles, but this turned out a bit longer than I expected and I thought it deserved its own post. Not trying to romanticize codependency, but as someone who felt that way for quite some time, it's definitely a rationalization that happens and it's important to note that those feelings - as unhealthy and warped as they are - are very much valid. Ok, i'll get off my soapbox now =P hope everyone's week is going well!